


Charlie Skinner, dead at 73

by MissAtomicBomb77



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Gen, obituary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:38:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a second draft, altered after the airing of the second to last episode of the show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charlie Skinner, dead at 73

"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.”

Charles Skinner, known as Charlie, died yesterday evening after collapsing at the offices at the headquarters of Atlantis Cable News. He was 73 years and and resided in southern Connecticut.

His death was announced by Will McAvoy, the recently released from prison anchor of “News Night with Will McAvoy” who broke into the network programing just after daybreak. “For decades, Charlie has been our colleague, our leader, yet above that, our friend. We will not be the same without him. The opportunity to remember and celebrate Charlie will be upon us soon enough. What we can do now to honor him is to continue to do the work he adored so much, keeping facts at the center.” It is unclear if Mr. McAvoy was witness to the event due to the timing of his release.

President Barak Obama, speaking at news conference on climate change said: “What he reported in his lifetime cannot be duplicated and his contributions to the industry truly bridge the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.”

Mr. Skinner, who was the President of the ACN (Atlantis Cable News) network, was tended to by members of his staff, who contacted emergency services. Cause of death was not immediately made available.

In announcing Mr. Skinner’s death to ACN, owner Lucas Pruit simply stated that he was “Someone that could not be replaced.”

Reese Lansing, formally Mr. Skinner’s boss when the company was owned by Atlantis World Media issued the following statement:

“He had given so much to the company and while he can never be replaced, we will continue with foundation he has provided Atlantis Cable News. On behalf of me and my mother, Ms. Lansing, we offer our condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and staff. Given everything that Charlie Skinner done not only for Atlantis World Media and Atlantis Cable News, but the journalism profession as well, we will move forward and name a successor when we all feel that the time is right.”

The Brooklyn born Skinner attended Yale College and in his junior year, held a summer internship at the Eisenhower White House. He received a B.A. Degree in Political Science in June 1962, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps Reserve on December 1962. He completed the Officer Candidate Course, The Basic School, Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia, in May 1963. Within the year, he was ordered to the Republic of Vietnam. He completed his service with the rank of Captain in 1966. While Mr. Skinner’s official capacity in the war had ended, his devotion to the war effort continued.

Mr. Skinner achieved international recognition, first as a radio correspondent for the AFN (Armed Forces Network), then as a syndicated newspaper columnist for UPI (United Press International), and as a reluctant pioneer in television journalism during the Vietnam War. While he would be the first to mention that his work was the sum of a team, he was the face of the stories that were brought into American’s homes.

For his work in Vietnam for UPI, Mr. Skinner earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for Feature Writing on the effects the Vietnam War was having on the Indochina region with particular emphasis on Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge. Much of his focus was on the people of the region and the humanity that suffered because of their natural passive nature.

As the end of the Vietnam War was nigh, Mr. Skinner won a second Pulitzer Prize for extended coverage of the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon in April of 1974, relying on a borrowed camera and secondhand recorder. He found himself at the center of both withdrawals and the polarizing difference between the two events – the order of Cambodia and chaos of Vietnam.

In 1977, Mr. Skinner was hired to work for the Jimmy Carter administration under the White House Communications Director Gerald Rafshoon. As Mr. Rafshoon was the first communications director with professional advertising experience, Rafshoon surrounded himself with people that he felt brought national and international experiences to the administration. Mr. Skinner’s work during this time included developing a uniform communications strategy, speech writing, crafting internal communications, producing weekly radio addresses, as well as assisting the White House Press Secretary on more than one occasion. When the president failed to achieve reelection, Mr. Skinner moved back into the private sector despite an offer from the Regan administration to stay.

In 1983, Mr. Skinner won the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting for outstanding contributions to public radio during his tenure at NPR. The recognition was an acknowledgement of his ability to represent the station in foreign and international broadcasting organizations. It was at this awards presentation he met his future employers, Leona and Reese Lansing, socially. A photograph from that evening made the rounds the next few days of Mr. Skinner listening to an animated young Reese Lansing tell a story. Employment with Atlantis World Media would not come until 1992.

He received his Peabody Award in 1990 during his tenure at CNN (Cable News Network) for his part in the coverage of the crisis in the Persian Gulf, including Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Coverage of the Gulf War was a watershed moment for the genre of cable news because of their ability to report the story live from within the war zone and not rely on the hope that tape and film could be sent out of the country, as was the case in Vietnam.

Much in the steps of the late Edward R. Murrow, he was prone to unconventionality, an individual in every step of his career. From being a reporter in the trenches of war, he would move effortlessly in the political arena during his tenure as an Associate Producer and contributor to All Things Considered at NPR (National Public Radio). A stationary life was not enough for him and he returned to the front lines in a Senior Production role in Afghanistan and Iraq before becoming a programing executive for CNN and ultimately the move to Atlantis World Media (formally Atlantis Media Group) where he would become President of ACN. He capitalized on the trail that had been blazed before him by reporting on what needed to be reported on and dealing with the repercussions of the reporting after the fact, never afraid to report on controversy.

In the fall of 2012, Mr. Skinner approved the airing of an ACN Special Report produced by Mackenzie McHale, Jerry Dantana and others that detailed the events of “Operation Genoa”. The report asserted the claim that Sarin never gas had been used and other war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan in 2009. This was immediately controversial despite the initial and seemingly reliable evidence; it was the start of a series of legal battles currently known as the “Genoa” litigation. There are ongoing court cases that name ACN and parent company AWM including wrongful termination, defamation, and libel cases. Support for Mr. Skinner from parent company AWM never wavered, as does the company’s ongoing support for all defendants named in the “Genoa” litigation.

While the following comment was not obtained in direct relation to “Operation Genoa”; it can be said that it speaks to Mr. Skinner’s over all thought process of his life’s work. “Good stories come from truth. Great stories come from fact; because facts are not created, discovered or manufactured, merely acknowledged and presented in a fashion to let the listeners, readers, or viewers draw their own conclusions and take action based on that discovery, then I’ve done my part.”

Mr. Skinner is survived by his daughter Sophia, and his wife Nancy. Those that knew him well were struck by the relationship that he had with his wife and daughter. Mr. Skinner was known to steal away from work during the day to welcome them home from work or school to brighten their days. The family kept a home in Stamford, Connecticut.


End file.
